Entries in " business "  

Mom and Pop Money - Trading Customers For Cash

I wrote a few weeks back about a new product I was getting ready to launch named "Mom and Pop Money". The product had been ready for a few weeks but I had to wrap up some things before I could officially release it.

Last week I gave an early release to the waiting list and my blog's mailing list. So far the feedback has been exceptional! I am very happy with the results so far and have received some awesome testimonials. Testimonials so good you'd think I paid the people to write them... but I didn't.

What exactly is "Trading Customers For Cash"?

Essentially it's generating leads online for resale to local "mom and pop" businesses. I've written in the past about this method and I got a few emails asking for more info. I decided then to create this product and offer it for sale. I can see this was a very smart decision.

The product guides you through the entire process and includes all the tools needed to run this sort of business online. Here is everything that's included:

Mom and Pop Money eBook - 14 chapters of "meat and potatoes" revolving around a lead generation system that I've been using for some time.

Lead Management Software - I spent good hard money to have this software produced. It makes managing the entire system an absolute breeze. It will be included in the product.

Free Templates - Some free website templates that I have actually used do work this system. I might be using them right now!

Video Tutorials - Tutorials that are easy to follow and show you how to install the lead management software and upload the free template that's also included.

Phone Consultation - I will personally spend some time on the phone with you to discus this system and how you can set yourself up to start making a profit a.s.a.p.

There is also another bonus that's included but I don't want to make this post to "sales pagey". That's what the actual sales page is for :)

So if you're tired of all the same old recycled "make money online" BS being passed around, you will probably get a kick out of Mom and Pop Money. I recommend you Check it out here...

Technorati Tags: business, make money online, marketing, mom and pop money, product launch, sales, testimonials

Mom and Pop Money System...

I've been talking about a new product that I'm developing for the last several months. This isn't some new software package (well, it sort of is) but it's an entirely new informational product and I am putting the finishing touches on everything now...

Announcing... The "Mom and Pop Money" system.. TA-DA.

*cough*

Seriously though, the product is getting ready for launch next month. Here is a quick run down of what's included...

Mom and Pop Money eBook - Nearly 100 pages of "meat and potatoes" revolving around a lead generation system that I've been using for some time. I've even written about it on this blog before.

Lead Management Software - I spent good hard money to have this software produced. It makes managing the entire system an absolute breeze. It will be included in the product.

Free Templates - Some free website templates that I have actually used do work this system. I might be using them right now!

Video Tutorials - Tutorials that are easy to follow and show you how to install the lead management software and upload the free template that's also included.

Phone Consultation - I will personally spend some time on the phone with you to discus this system and how you can set yourself up to start making a profit a.s.a.p.

If you're interested in reading a bit more about it, head over to the product website at MomAndPopMoney.com. If you subscribe to the waiting list you get a bunch of free goodies and a nice discount when the system is released (like, less than $20 total nice!)

Check it out here...

Technorati Tags: business, internet, internet marketing, make money online, marketing, mom and pop money

Provide Value To Your Customers And Forget About The Price

The other day I was reading a question from a frustrated internet marketer on a web forum. It read something like this (paraphrasing here)...

How are people selling products for $50 or more? I can barely sell my eBooks for $5 each. In the last 6 months I have ONE affiliate sale for a product that is more than $50! What am I missing?

The answer is actually very simple. He is not building, or even offering, any real value. In marketing terms, this would be called Perceived Value. Either he's doing a bad job at relaying the value of his product, or the product he is promoting, or that product does not offer any real value. Real value has to be present, other wise you are just a liar.

How do you relay the perceived value?

It's simple, forget about the price! What I mean is, don't worry about the price for now. While you are presenting your product, for example on your sales page, you need to build up the value for the product first! Give enough value and the price really isn't that much of a factor.

Here is a quick example. Let's say you are selling a piece of software you wrote. Say it took you 6 hours to create this software. Now say you are able to bill $100 per hour had you wrote this software on a contract for some company. This piece of software now has a value of $600.

Now, to help build up the value of this piece of software, you should create a video (or screen cast) of how to setup, install and use this software. This adds another $100 of value (it took you an hour to create it).

As a bonus, why not write a special report on how to effectively use this software in whatever business niche you are targeting (or whatever). It doesn't have to be a huge report — 10 pages is plenty. Just make sure you give valuable information to help improve your customers business or quality of life. In other words, you are making their life easier some how. Add another $100 of value for this special report.

So you're looking at around $800 of perceived value. On your sales page, you need to properly convey this value. Present it cleanly, use bright colors, bold headlines & sub headlines. Maybe use fancy graphics or create a nice display table on the page to show the various extras that are included and why they are worth the extra $100 each. You need to make sure that your reader understands they are looking at possibly purchasing something worth at least $800 (in this example).

Make sure they are at ease when purchasing from you. Offering a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee is absolutely required. More and more marketers are offering 60, 90 or even 365 day money back guarantees! Your visitors have to feel that their money is safe and if you are offering a money back guarantee they will feel like you really are offering something of value. If you weren't, you wouldn't be offering a guarantee right?

Now you can ask them to buy your product and give them the cost of it. Do yourself, and your customer, a favor. Make the price so low that they CAN'T SAY NO! It's simple, sell the item for $49. That's less than 10% of the perceived value and if you present it right, it will be a no brainer purchase for quite a few of your website visitors.

There are so many methods to build value it's way beyond the scope of a single article. Maybe I will work on a series of articles for this blog.

The point is, if you want your item to sell like hot cakes then you need to build up the perceived value to be so great that your visitor will have no choice but to purchase your product.

Now go make some money...

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, marketing, perceived value, sale conversion, sales, value

Amazon S3 Outages

I, like a lot of others, make use of the Amazon S3 service for data storage "in the cloud". The service is a huge success and normally behaves extremely stable.

Yesterday there was a very large S3 outage which caused many online companies to suffer outages as well. There was an interesting piece over at ReadWriteWeb asking "How Much Is To Much?".

I've been using S3 for nearly 2 years and have only experienced trouble twice. I wrote about the previous experience and that outage lasted about 3 hours. Yesterday however the outage was more than 6 hours!

Now I use S3 for the static media on many websites, including this site. Since it's my personal blog it's no big deal, but I also use it for many sites that are for profit, including my latest service: SmartJabber.

Yesterdays outage effected paying customers of mine. They have been understanding but I have to ask myself if a change may be needed to prevent future outages that last this long. The idea of using Amazon S3 is that, in theory, the service can't go down. It's a large cluster of servers whose purpose is to host their customers data securely and with a very high availability.

In the grand scheme of things, my data is probably safer more stable remaining with Amazon. Though I do hate the feeling of having my hands tied when the service is down.

Others out there seem to share my opinion of sticking with Amazon, and others don't.

Technorati Tags: amazon s3, business, outage, service

I Can Control You With My Words

I've written in the past about Hypnotic Writing. Since I found the book by Joe Vitale I have been very interested in learning more about the science behind it and how I can increase my profit from it.

Today I stumbled across a very useful reference article. I suggest you read it if you are interested in this sort of writing technique. In fact the guys entire blog is one great big resource for this particular subject.

It's fairly obvious from my blog posts that I am no great writer. I'm not even a good one. The idea that I can write an amazing sales letter is what keeps me interested in the subject. I will continue to work on my writing style so that I naturally form a series of hypnotic statements and commands that can be fine tuned after the fact.

My biggest problem with writing is that I seem to have permanent writers block. The only "cure" that seems to work for me is to sit down and start writing something. Anything. After 5-10 minutes I'll get an idea and go with it. That's what we, in "the biz," call getting in "the zone." (Let's see if you catch that reference/joke)

One of the pieces of advice given by Joe Vitale is to not worry about your work being perfect. Test it, tweak it and then test/tweak it again. Once you are satisfied that it's as good as you can do, let it go. Give it to the world. Just let it go. This is another one of my biggest problems. I continue to think I can improve anything I am writing, whether it's a blog post, sales letter, email, software, etc. and I end up spending to much time editing on the fly.

Close your eyes and just write. Edit, format, etc. later. Just get the words on paper (you know what I mean) and you will have a solid foundation to build on.

Technorati Tags: joe vitale, hypnotic writing, hypnotic, writing, sales, sales letters

Wanna Know Why Defeat Is Your Friend?

It is damn near impossible to reach huge success without going through multiple set backs. Doesn't matter whether you come from a poor family or rich family. In the end, we are all human and all humans make mistakes. Aside from myself, there are no perfect human beings out there. Ahem.

Want to know how to turn defeat into a positive?

What happens when you hit some sort of defeat or setback? One of these three things happens:

You Quit - You are so defeated that you totally give up. You accept that you just aren't good enough and run away. Sissy!

You Accept - Again, you accept the defeat but you don't run away. Instead you just continue with the status quo and will probably continue to be defeated in your future plans. In other words: You live life on your knees!

You Fight - You accept this setback, but know it's not permanent. You get up, figure out what went wrong and try again, usually with huge success!

Study your defeat and try to learn what caused it. 99.9% of the time your setback is a direct result of one of your actions.

It's similar to scientists studying any illness. Find out the cause and stomp that out in some way.

So next time you fail at something, don't get down on yourself. At least you tried, which is more than most people do! Instead take the failure as a learning experience. Build off that to educate yourself so you don't make the same mistakes in the future.

When you're knocked to the floor, if you can't get yourself back up, how can you possibly move forward?

I just finished reading the book The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz. There is a chapter dedicated to this exact subject and it really hits the nail on the head. The book is an excellent read, although it can be a bit slow in some places. It was originally printed in the 50's and the style reflects that, but I still highly recommend it.

Technorati Tags: business, defeat, fight, life

Your Internet Marketing War Chest

So you heard all the hype about striking it rich on the internet huh? Probably ran across a website or two telling you how you can make $50,000 next week and how you can "get rich quick" by becoming an affiliate marketer. Unfortunately, that's not realistic. It's crazy how many people still haven't learned that if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Now for the good news. You really can earn a great living online and even get rich — just not as quick as we'd all like. If you want to make a living online you will need to learn a lot about internet marketing. There are many tools and services that you will need to get familiar with. So with that in mind I present you with...

The Only Internet Marketing Resource List You'll Ever Need!

Sorry for the cheesy sub-headline above, but as you learn more about marketing, you'll learn that cheese often sells. I will not go into great detail about each of these services below as that is not the scope of this post, I will however give a brief description of what the service is and why it's useful. And here we go.

Web Hosting

JumpLaunch - You gotta have a place for your website to "live" and JumpLaunch has excellent service. I highly recommend them. Use coupon code "petersanchez" at checkout for 20% off :)

Advertising

Now that your website is up and running, you gotta let the world know. There are many methods but in the internet marketing world, none are more rapid than PPC advertising.

Google Adwords - The big daddy of all PPC advertising. Highest volume, which usually means the best result but it also means it's the most expensive to master. Might be smart to start with Yahoo and MSN (see below) and work up to Google.

Yahoo SM - Yahoo is the second in over all search volume. Their user interface is pretty limited but it's not difficult to get setup and running. Usually less expensive than Google as well.

MSN AdCenter - MSN AdCenter is the little brother to Google & Yahoo. While it's volume is much lower there still is a lot of potential here. Think more bang for your buck.

Facebook Ads - Facebook is a huge social network. It's recently launched PPC platform has excellent demographic targeting and is relatively inexpensive to run ads here.

Customer Retention / Up Selling

In marketing, creating a "funnel" of sales is so important. Offering an upsell, affiliate offer or freebie is a huge way to keep someone as a customer. A huge number of your customers are likely to be repeat buyers as long as they were happy with the original product they purchased. So here are some tools used to keep and up sell your customers.

SmartJabber - Interactive and intelligent artificial chat agent. Gives the appearance of a live person helping the visitors to your website. Low monthly fee to use this tool. This really helps build a level of trust for your visitors. It literally pays for itself.

AWeber - Email marketing is so important in the world of internet business. AWeber is an email list manager that lets you capture your customer's information for future use. It's totally opt-in so your users can remove themselves from your list at any time. With this, you can put any offer in front of your users via email, 24/7! This may be the most important "tool" in making a living online.

Affiliate Networks

Affiliate networks are an excellent resource. Basically affiliate marketing works like so. You refer a person to company XYZ. If the person you referred makes a purchase with XYZ, you get a commission. Commissions can range form small to very large, depending on the product/offer. So say you sell a gardening book on your website and you want to recommend other books to them. Email them a list of books, using your affiliate offer link, and you create a triple win situation. Your customers are happy with the recommendation, company XYZ is happy for the sale and you are happy for the commission. Here are some of the affiliate networks I recommend.

Azoogle Ads - Great team, excellent affiliate managers.

NeverBlu Ads - Very helpful staff. Excellent starting point for newbies.

Commission Junction - Very big market place. Offers for anything you can imagine! Good customer service.

LinkShare - The first affiliate network. Very big market place as well.

Payment Processors

At some point, you are probably going to be charging your customers for either your product or service. Here are a few options you have in doing just that.

Paypal - You've probably already heard of this company. They are easy to use and very popular. I personally don't like some of their resolution policies.

Google Checkout - Google's attempt at payment processing. I have used this service and highly recommend it. Their resolution policy is one of the best around! Fair to both merchant and buyer.

2Checkout - Popular payment processor. Low fees and website integration.

Power Pay - Power Pay is an authorize.net reseller. They will set you up with a merchant account so you can process credit cards from your own site. This is for the more hardcore but is definitely the correct way to go once you start bringing in a higher sales volume.

Secure Download Providers

If you are selling digital products via your website (ie, ebooks, spreadsheets, etc.) than you will be smart to protect your digital goods. What these services do is guard your digital products and only allow paid customers to download the media.

Clickbank - This is more of a market place where you can list your product and they will handle the payment processing, downloads, returns, etc. for you. It does cost $49 (one time fee) to have your product listed in their market place. Largest of it's kind and worth the small one time fee.

E-Junkie - Awesome tool. Cost starts at $5/mo which is the base plan, and probably more than enough to meet your needs. E-Junkie also has a shopping cart, affiliate management and multiple payment options. All are included with your plan and the best part, there are NO per sale fees!

PayDotCom - PayDotCom is similar to E-Junkie above but more expensive. Also includes other tools like a mailing list manager, etc.

Affiliate Management

Usually you can use outside services to handle your affiliates for you. In some cases you will need to run your own affiliate management software. In this situation you will need to deploy your own software that helps you manage your affiliates (payments, etc.) Here you go..

iDevAffiliate - The best software I have used for personally managing affiliates. I currently use this software on 2 sites and it does a great job of keeping the tedious task of affiliate management as simple as possible.

Conclusion

As you can see you have many options to look into and decide upon. Research and test to find out your best collection and then put it to use. It's like Bobby D said in Ronin, "I don't know.. It's a tool box. I use the best tool for the job!"

Bookmark this page as this resource list will be updated when I have more stuff to add.

Disclosure: Most, if not all, of the links I show here are affiliate links. I am affiliated with, or own, some of the companies listed above.

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, business, internet marketing, list, make money online, marketing, resource

Have Your Visitors Eating From The Palm Of Your Hand

Ever wonder how you can build a relationship with your website visitors? If not, you should be.

Fact: People buy from people they trust. Building a rapport with your visitors is a sure fire way to turn that visitor into a customer. It's not as difficult as it sounds. I don't mean getting into a personal first name basis with every one of your visitors. That's impossible. But there are ways of building rapport and trust with your visitors. As someone doing business online, this is absolutely vital.

I've written in the past about ways to improve your sales and all of them involve some form of building trust with your visitor.

It's All in the Writing

Writing sales copy that the reader can relate with is crucial. You always need to write a sales letter with the reader in mind. Answer any questions they may have in your letter and you are practically guaranteed a buyer. The trick is to get out of your own head and into the visitors. Place yourself in their shoes. Would YOU want to buy your product after reading your own sales letter? It's an ego thing. Forget your ego and consider the ego of the reader.

Just Be Yourself

Personality goes a long way. All to often I read letters that sound so phony. Some marketer is trying to sell me with a "technically" written sales page. Sure all the bullet points, advantages, benefits and bonuses are there. But the sales letter has no personality. It's as if a robot wrote it (and that's probably what happened, using some pre-packaged sales letter wizard software). In my opinion, sales letters — or writing period — are much more effective if the writing feels like a real person. Joe Vitale says you should "write how you would talk". If you use slang, then write with some slang. It gives your writing a personal touch. That is something people can relate with and helps build a rapport.

I am not a technically trained writer. I am not even a very good writer (hey, I admit it). I do try to write in my own personality. I generally have no problem meeting new people and making friends. I feel like I am a likable guy and so I just write in my own personality. So far it has served me well enough. In fact, if you haven't yet, why not take a quick second to subscribe to my RSS feed and judge for yourself ;)

Prove You're Trustworthy

There are other things to consider as well. Your writing and personality are key to building trust but the visitor also has to know his information is safe. They also have to know that their gut feeling is correct — that you are in fact trustworthy! Some key things to help out here are Testimonials from previous buyers of your product. Some people feel these are cheesy. I never understood that feeling. Your visitors can relate to testimonials because they see other "regular people" who have bought your product and were so satisfied with it, they went out of their way to let you know! Video testimonials are best.

Etc.

Some more drastic steps can be paid services that vouch for your character. This can be things like the BBB Online program or Hacker Safe. While these aren't necessarily required, they will go a long way in the readers mind.

Sure there are many other ways of building a relationship with your websites. Far too many to cover in a single post. Think creatively and you will come up with your own unique flares that your visitor can relate to, which will lead to more sales.

Now go get to work...

Technorati Tags: business, internet marketing, personality, sale conversion, trust, writing

Working From Pismo Beach, CA

The wife and I decided to spend the weekend in Pismo Beach this Memorial Day weekend. I've been super busy with work lately and I really needed this break! That has also been the reason I haven't been posting as much as I would like.

Even though I am out of town, I still will spend an hour or so each day working. That's the great thing about running businesses that operates online. You can work from basically anywhere. With a laptop and an internet connection, you're office is wherever you are. Right now I am writing this from my hotel room. We are preparing to go explore the shore and sand dunes on the coast that Pismo Beach is famous for.

The internet has completely changed the landscape for entrepreneurs. While I still need to show up to the office most days it's totally fine if I want to escape for a few days and take a breather. Since my businesses are all run online, they continue whether I am there or not. As long as I can make sure things are still operating fine, then things continue to run and I continue to make money. Even while riding dune buggies along the awesome California coast line ;)

That's what being you're own boss is all about!

Technorati Tags: being your own boss, business, entrepreneur, independence, internet

Weak US Dollar = Opportunity

It's no secret that the US economy is slowing down. Oil (gas) prices, defaulting mortgage loans and employer cutbacks are causing Americans to stop and think before they go splurge on some new eBook (or whatever) online.

How can you take advantage of the weak dollar? There are several ways. For example, the export business isn't doing so bad. Because foreign money now gets them more for the the same, they are ordering more than ever. Ports along the west coast have a 6 week wait for container space!

But since we all want to make our money online, lets look at another angle.

An easy way to earn extra income is by promoting affiliate products in countries where the currency is more valuable. For instance, England.

AzoogleAds is my favorite affiliate network (right now) and they offer many programs from various European countries where the currency is more valuable than ours here in the USA. You can use Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing to target traffic directly in whatever country you are promoting to.

If you make a few bucks with this, make sure to send me my cut ;)

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, business, internet marketing, opportunity, weak dollar

Guide to Industry Networking - Entirely Online - Part Two

In my last post about networking entirely online I spoke about the value of various forums that were out there and how valuable they were. While that is an excellent resource it is not the sort of method I like to use when trying to network online. I am a little more bold and I try to get in direct contact with someone. Either via email or telephone. So, how do I go about that?

Say there is this huge mega super star internet marketer that you are just dying to get on the phone with. First off, you have to understand that these people are very busy and probably not going to want to talk to you when you give them a ring — assuming you are able to locate their phone number. That is the tricky part.

How do you get their number? Well, it doesn't hurt if you have a reputation in the community. Even a tiny footprint in the community can be enough. At least it's a starting point. The reason being is you want the person you are trying to reach to be able to do a little research on you. A blog, like this one, comes in real handy in those situations.

So you want to get on the phone with Joe Blow from JoeBlowMarketing.com. There is more than likely going to be a series of gate keepers (people who will screen their communication). If his business number is on his website, just pick up the phone and dial it. Ask for Joe Blow! You'd be surprised how well just calling and asking for someone works, regardless of how big the name is. Most big guys aren't going to have their phone numbers available to the public how ever...

If their website doesn't have a direct email address, take a few guesses as to what it is. For example, joe@joeblowmarketing.com, jblow@joeblowmarketing.com, jb@joeblowmarketing.com, etc. I know it sounds silly, and it is, but if it pays off in the end is it still silly? Of course not. It was a means to an end.

You now have their email (either given to you on their website or you figured it out). Prepare a nice, personal and honest email explaining why you would like to be in contact with Joe Blow. If you are writing for help, you will probably either be ignored or will get a response from one of Joe's sales guys. Be honest, say you admire his work and would like to try to network with him. Give some of your ideas on how the two of you can earn money together. How are you unique, etc.

Hopefully you will get a response and hopefully it's from Joe himself. Slow build a relationship with the guy. Keep in mind that internet marketers are generally very personable people. I've met and hung out with a few different big name marketers and they never treated me any different than anyone else. Nurture the relationship and eventually it will progress.

Brainstorm ideas to present to him. People, especially marketers, love to hear how you can make them money! Over time it will turn into a friendship and maybe a partnership! Before you know it, you'll be chatting on the telephone with Joe and probably making money together.

(sorry, this post was sort of thrown together and I didn't really edit it... But you get the idea)

Technorati Tags: marketing, internet, networking, business

Guide to Industry Networking - Entirely Online

Everyone knows that networking is a huge part of success in business. With the right contacts, practically anyone can seem like a superstar businessman. In reality, they just have a deep rolodex. The ability to network is a skill that everyone has to be able to get the hang of (if you want to be in business online).

Not everyone has the money to attend those expensive seminars that are held all around the country, many times per year. It might not be a financial setback either. A lot of people, especially "noob's", lack the confidence to get any real networking done at those events. Confidence in ones self, and their knowledge of their particular industry, speaks volumes.

So if you can't make it to the next big conference what are your options? Believe it or not, you can do a lot of networking online. Sure, we all know of the big social networks like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn but there are much more specific methods of networking online.

Specifically in the internet marketing industry, here are a few spots that you may not know about but are absolute gold mines.

Warrior Forum - Most big internet marketers hang out on Warrior Forum. Aside from that, there is tons and tons of information in the posts. The community is geared towards newbies and you are free to ask any question you like.

Digital Point Forums - Like the Warrior Forum above this is an excellent resource. The community here is more geared towards marketers and internet entrepreneurs with a little more experience under their belt. That's not to say that newbies aren't welcome there, but the "hand holding" will be kept to a minimum here.

Both of the forums above are the perfect place to meet people who are successful in the internet marketing business. Best part, they are completely free to join! It's not hard to spot the veterans from the rookies at these places, so why not send some of these people a message and try to get to know them.

If you decide to send them a message you have to keep in mind that they probably receive several messages per day from people like you. Make sure you send a message that will catch, and hold, their attention. Be bold, unique and a little witty (if possible heh). There have been many successful partnerships formed over forums like these so don't knock it until you try it!

Technorati Tags: business, entrepreneur, forums, internet marketing, networking, social network

Twitter - I Jumped On The Bandwagon...

With everyone always yapping and blogging about Twitter, I decided to create a profile and see what all the hype is about. Honestly, I don't see it as being as "friendly" as Groovr (disclosure: I did work for Groovr for some time) so I don't get what all the fuss is about.

I've started following a few people and feel like I've got the hang of it. I will slowly add more people as I continue to navigate the Twitter sea. You can find me on twitter here.

There has been some rumblings this week about Twitter as a service. It appears to be down constantly, although I have yet to notice an outage (but I just started, and still barely use, twitter). TechCrunch has been discussing twitter and their inner turmoils for some time now.

I find it fascinating that Twitter has a service has grown to be so popular, and more importantly, depended upon by it's huge user base. I've seen writings about how to use Twitter to market (something I should probably get into while it's still a fresh & young idea). Can a quick 140 text message really compete with the social networking marketing power that sites like MySpace and Facebook provide?

We shall see (said the blind men.. or something like that)

Technorati Tags: downtime, facebook, marketing, myspace, social network, twitter

What Powers SmartJabber

I've had some inquiries to what powers SmartJabber, so I decided to write up a quick outline of the technology that is being used to power the new service.

In case you hadn't heard yet, I recently launched a new company called SmartJabber. The general idea behind the service is to offer an automated support agent via a "live chat" window. It's a cheap alternative to hiring someone to do basic live chat support.

The tool can be used to convert visitors into customers, save sales or offer a basic level of customer service (say on an FAQ page or something). There is a lot of work that goes on the back end that makes this service fast and reliable. In this geeky post, I will go over some of the technology that I used to create this tool.

Python was used for the programming on the back end. This includes the web site and back end processing. I went with Python because I love the language for a number of reasons and I have a lot of experience writing web applications using it.

Django is the ultimate web framework, written in pure Python. I began learning Django over a year ago and have worked on numerous projects using the framework since. I've created web apps using a variety of different languages and none of them can compare to the Django framework (at least in my opinion).

PostgreSQL is the most powerful and feature packed open source database system available. PostgreSQL is used to store all the records and statistics that are part of the SmartJabber service. Each chat instance is logged, with full records and tracking of user action. Because of the amount of data we store, track and process every day the database needs to be powerful enough to handle the service load. PostgreSQL should handle this just fine.

Memcached is an ultra light caching daemon that stores it's entire cache table in the server RAM. Because of this, and the access method, the results are stored, fetched and removed at a lightning fast speed. Memcached is used to store the results of some of the heavy processing that occurs often. To keep server load down, we store the results of various computations for an extended period of time.

Amazon AWS S3 is a "storage in the cloud" solution that provides super cheap data storage. The service cost is related to your direct usage. In other words, you only pay for what you actually use. Because of this policy, a lot of startups (and big companies too) use this service. We use S3 for the serving of all static media.

The actual chat window was created using Javascript combined with basic CSS usage. In other words, it's AJAX. Being that I am a Javascript weenie I hired out this aspect of the project, which was definitely a smart decision.

The entire service is run from 4 servers that handle an array of functions. While everything is designed to be highly scalable from the ground up, a lot of performance gains come from the user of S3 and Memcached. We also made sure to tune Django as much as possible to squeeze out every last drop of performance. Because Django is already pretty fast, and because of our layout, the service is very fast and if the cluster becomes a little loaded we can simply throw servers at the problem.

That's roughly the gist of it. Feel free to ask any specific questions you may have.

Technorati Tags: amazon s3, business, django, memcached, postgresql, python, smartjabber

JohnChow.com Reviews SmartJabber, Corrections Needed

As you know, I recently announced the launch of of SmartJabber. This is one of the new companies I have been working on the last several months. To help spread the word we ordered a paid review from JohnChow.com. We weren't quite sure what to expect because the review would be an honest one, regardless of the fact that it is a paid review. I am totally cool with that and I wouldn't expect, or accept, anything less.

When we ordered the review we assumed we would be contacted for a free account so the reviewer would be able to fully use the service and get a real feeling for it, how it works, the pros and cons, etc. Well we never got the request for the test account and today I noticed the review had been posted last night (click here to read).

There is some constructive criticism, which I find extremely helpful. However there are some points made in the review that are flat out wrong. The following was taken from the review itself:

This agent then poses a question of your choosing, possibly offering the customer a discount so that they will follow through on the sale. The thing is that this agent doesn’t really exist. They’re nothing more than a photo and an automated script. This is not a true instant messenger in any sense of the word, because the faux agent isn’t really responding to anything that the customer is typing.

This is totally incorrect. The agent responses are completely customizable and tailored to match the users input based on your own keyword/response settings. There is no limit to how many keyword(s)/responses you can use (and each response supports multiple keywords) so you can make your agents seem as real as possible. When a user asks a question that doesn't have a programmed response, it is flagged and logged for your later review. You can then add a response to that question based on the keywords within it.

Because this is the heart and soul of our application, and with the size of JohnChow.com's readership, the fact that they got this wrong is really upsetting. The review appears to be a review of our main website, not the actual service itself. The true benefit was never relayed to the reader because the reviewer never had a chance to see the customer interface, which is where users are able to customize their campaigns based on agents, links, responses, etc.

The review also made no mention of the statistics tracking that we provide. We track everything from the number of interactions, the number of link clicks, the number of sales, CTR, which browsers convert better, etc. All of this is available in the customer control panel but since the reviewer never got to see this they had no idea.

Another issue the reviewer had was the cost. Here is what he had to say:

SmartJabber offers three pricing plans:

$49.95 a month for 3 campaigns
$79.95 a month for 10 campaigns
$199.95 a month for unlimited campaigns

I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty expensive for what SmartJabber does. It’s also curious that there is no plan for a single campaign.

He has a valid point about the single campaign plan. I will look into adding that option immediately. While I understand that $49.95/mo is expensive for a web service, especially in today's "free" internet service culture. But when you look at the competition, we are a huge discount. None of our competitors (there are only one or two) offer a flat rate fee for their service. Our competitors charge on a per sale basis. Meaning for every sale their service saves for you, you are charged $10 (last we checked, it was $10 per sale). So if you save 50 sales a month, you are paying $500! Now saving 50 sales a month is being done routinely by us and some of our users. How many saved sales would it take for SmartJabber to pay for itself? That depends on your product & pricing but I am guessing not very many.

I am working on getting in touch with the folks over at JohnChow.com so they can (hopefully) offer a real review of our service. At least update their current review but I am afraid that will not improve the damage that the current review may have done. Oi...

Update: We went ahead and added a single campaign plan for $19.99/mo. In addition, we are going to offer a 60 day free trial to the public. If you want to take advantage of that, click here!

Technorati Tags: business, internet marketing, john chow, johnchow.com, review, smartjabber

What Is The Makeup Of An Entrepreneur?

For the longest time I was afraid to jump into business. I thought that there was a "formula" that I hadn't learned yet or some techniques I needed to brush up on. I always second guessed myself due to my lack of a formal, college, education (I'm sure you can tell that from my horrible grammar).

While I am still wet behind the ears when it comes to running a business, or multiple businesses, successfully I have learned quite a lot in the last 6 months while actually building and running multiple businesses. It got me thinking tonight, what is the makeup of an entrepreneur? What is it that motivates people to take huge risks while chasing their dreams?

What have I learned?

The most important thing I learned, and I suppose I always knew, was that "Fortune favors the bold." Sure you need a little savvy to you and you should be able to talk, and understand, shop (business lingo, etc.) but the real secret is being bold. Get out there and do it!

The "formula" that I have learned is that building relationships is key. How deep your contact list is can define how successful you will become. Aside from being bold, this is absolutely the most important aspect of business. I am not just talking the gazillionaire angel investor, but all relationships are very important. Down to the people you buy your hardware from or the company you pay to clean your office. A solid foundation is built on strong relationships. Seminars and "meetups" have a whole new meaning to me now. (Quick note: I'll be attending the TechCrunch meetup on April 10th in Hollywood if any local folk want to come meet and say hello! update: I wrote this post earlier in the week and didn't get around to posting it. I was at the meet up last night and met a lot of cool people!)

While the two items above seem obvious, I never truly "understood" them until recently. I have a whole new appreciation for them. There are other aspects I have learned, or am starting to learn, as well but none are as important as those two.

So what makes up an entrepreneur?

Here are some qualities that I think all serial entrepreneurs have:

Boldness - I really can't stress this enough. Don't let your fears or insecurities get in your way. Jump into the game or go home. Period!

Networking Ability - Except for the lucky few of us, we all have trouble striking up conversation with random people at events. It is important how ever to branch out a bit and start meeting people. Like I said above, building relationships is key to virtually any new business!

Patience - All good things come to those who wait...

Impatience - But come on.. we can't be waiting around all day! Find the right balance and decide based on the situation when you have waited long enough.

Management - Of people, projects, time and todo's. Something I am still adjusting to is being someone's boss and, at least partly, responsible for their livelihood. You have to learn to manage a lot of different tasks when you are running a business.

Confidence - Be strong, confident and even a bit cocky. You may come off as a little arrogant but you will be respected for it. You will be required to make decisions and quickly, so be sure of yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, then no one else will!

Determination / Motivation - Find whatever it is that motivates you and use that to push you to that next level. Fortune, Fame, Recognition, "I told you so's", etc. Whatever it is that is fueling your desire, use it to your advantage.

Well there you have it. My list of qualities that I seem to notice in all the serial entrepreneurs I know. While I am on my way to becoming a serial entrepreneur myself, I don't consider myself there just yet. But hey, I just got started.. Give me another 12 months ;)

Technorati Tags: bold, business, entrepreneur, gut check, guts

Increase Sales Immediately with SmartJabber

What if you had a way to interact with your visitors before they leave your website... What if you had a way to automate turning your visitors into customers. Now there is a way to try and save the people who are abandoning your sales or order page.

Allow me to introduce you to SmartJabber. This is a new tool that I have been working on for a few months. This is part of the reason why I have been so busy lately.

So what is SmartJabber?

Basically it is an automated sales/support chat agent. It is software that sits "in between" your website and your visitor. When the user tries to navigate away from your sales page, they get a notice saying a live agent would like to speak with them. They can choose to continue and leave the page or chat with the agent.

The agent is a programmed "robot" that you will have setup yourself. You are able to program responses based on the keywords of your choice. The agents can be used to offer special discounts to give that final push to purchase your product. It could also be used to offer support based on general issues, etc. A nice tool to handle basic customer service for you. Each campaign can have unlimited agents.

You also have "default" responses which are triggered when no keyword match is found in the users input/questions. When a user asks a question that you have no programmed response for, a default message will be given in response. Also that question is marked and saved for you to review later. You can find which questions are being asked and add answers for them based on your own keyword choices.

There is a series of data that is saved and tracked for you to go over and help mold your campaign. When it comes to internet marketing and sales conversions, numbers are everything! SmartJabber will show you statistics based on date, type, browser, user interaction, user click through (and CTR%), saved sales, conversion rate, clicks per sale and more.

Adding it to any page you want it installed on is as simple as adding 1 line to load the javascript. It literally takes seconds to add this software to your website!

How can YOU get it?

Normally the free trial length is 15 days, but if you're reading this post, I'll double the free trial to 30 days. All you have to do is register your account by clicking here.

The cost of this tool is $49.95/mo for the basic plan which supports 3 campaigns (or 3 websites). I know a lot of people will be skeptical because of the monthly price. We all like free right? Well, I can't give this away for free because it costs me money to run this service and also because I am in this to make money myself!

If you are selling a product then this tool will easily pay for itself every month. If you use it for support, then $49/mo sure is a lot cheaper than paying someone to sit around and wait for a live chat request.

So get your free account and try it out for 30 days. If you don't think it will pay for itself then simply cancel your account and you will never be charged a penny!

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR SMARTJABBER ACCOUNT!

Technorati Tags: business, chat agent, internet, internet marketing, marketing, sale conversion, support

No, I Am Not Slacking Off

Word on the street is that I have been slacking off and that is why I haven't been posting much on my blog lately. I wish that was the case but the truth is I have been super busy with work. My partner and I are launching our new company/service this weekend at a seminar here in Los Angeles this weekend. I will announce it next week to the world via this blog, of course!

Launching 2 companies in 4 months is not an easy task. It's been a lot of work and a lot of slow progress but we are very positive it will all pay off, and soon!

As you can imagine it is serious crunch time right now. Days away from the launch of our new service and still putting the finishing touches on small design changes, etc. Oh, and the mixup with our servers hasn't helped either. We were shipped the wrong servers, built to the wrong specs, and have been running ourselves ragged trying to resolve this and get these machines provisioned in time.

Anyways, hang in there. I will post more frequently soon enough. I need to get past this weekend and take a few days to decompress... Wish me luck!

Technorati Tags: marketing, business, tired, entrepreneur, internet

Making Money Selling Leads To Offline Companies

We've all seen the offers in the various affiliate networks for lead generation. A lot of companies pay, and pay nicely, for a qualified lead. I'm sure a few of you reading this are using this method to put money in your pocket every day. But there is a lot of money to be made if you expand outside of the affiliate networks.

Selling Leads To Offline Companies

Ever considered generating qualified leads online for resale to an offline company? I can tell you that this can be very profitable! This takes a lot more work and you will definitely need some salesmanship, but if you are able to build this type of relationship with a company than you can turn a very nice profit!

How does it work? Well let's look at an imaginary example...

Say you meet a dentist who is looking to improve his client base. He know he can find customers online but has no clue how to go about it. He obviously has no clue how to generate qualified leads online and doesn't have the time, or desire, to start learning how. How can you help?

Well, since you are an internet marketer you will be able to bring your skill set to the table and start providing qualified leads for a fee. You can usually get a much nicer payout than on the affiliate networks but the downside is that the dentist probably doesn't have the money off hand to pay you for as many leads as you can bring to the table.

What Type Of Companies To Focus On

Any company that has a sales and marketing department. Any company with an established sales department will usually pay for qualified leads. You can also focus on individual sales people themselves, for example an insurance salesman. You can charge per lead or go for some sort of revenue sharing. There are many options and they will depend on the company, people you deal with, profit potential, conversion rates, average sale amount, etc.

You will have to be a bit of a salesman yourself to land this type of deal. A lot of these companies will be skeptical because they are not familiar with internet marketing. It would probably be a good idea to throw them some leads for free to prove you are able to give them what they are looking for. If you are able to continuously provide qualified, highly targeted, leads then their sales department should be able to close at a nice percentage.

But Is It Worth The Trouble?

As mentioned above a lot of these companies may not be able to afford a high number of leads. So how do you make sure it's worth the trouble? Well, focus on companies that are selling higher priced items. They will usually pay more for a good lead or be willing to do a revenue share. A good example might be a plastic surgery center. If you are able to land a revenue sharing deal then they can handle as many leads as you can bring and your profit will sky rocket as long as they have a decent sales floor.

I know someone who makes $500-$600 a day, every day, selling leads to 2 local businesses. The total cost of generating those leads is less than $15 per day. So, if you can find a good niche and work out a deal with a local company that fills it, you can make a very nice chunk of change.

Technorati Tags: business, lead generation, marketing, revenue sharing

How To Kill Your Affiliate Manager

Ever wanted to take out an affiliate manager you do business with? If you've done any sort of affiliate marketing, I'm sure you have. While we don't want to actually kill (murder, rub out, smoke, ice, put down, etc.) the person, we can get pretty frustrated with them and the company they represent. This post is about a real gripe I have with a real affiliate manager. That's right... I'm calling out names.

WebHostingPad.com

I was contacted by Ben Hong (ben@webhostingpad.com) a few months back. He is the affiliate manager for webhostingpad.com, a new web hosting company that has launched recently. Apparently the company is a spawn of Omnis Network of web hosting companies. I have a website that does a lot of web hosting promotion and so Ben wanted placement on my site.

After a sweet offer of $200 per sale for the first 30 days I said I would give them a shot. I hopped on the phone with Ben and talked numbers with him. He promised me a minimum of 4% conversion on qualified traffic. I sent him traffic slowly and I realized their conversion rate was no where near 4% (more like 1%). Still, I got new sales notification emails and watched my account balance grow. I was happy because the payout was so high and I would just throttle the traffic. I had planned on dumping them after the first 30 days if I didn't notice an increase in the conversion rate.

Then I started noticing sales emails with no record of it in my affiliate account. I got on the phone with Ben and he investigated. After a few weeks, and many annoyed emails/calls from me, he explained it was a "bug" in their software (which is iDevAffiliate, something everyone uses).

I started seeing the writing on the wall so I immediately stopped sending traffic his way. Figured I would let the relationship go and collect what's owed to me at the next payment cycle. Well, when that cycle came I got an email notifying me that I had been paid via Paypal. Well, I hadn't received anything from Paypal confirming and when logging into my account, the payment wasn't there. Now it gets interesting.

I email Ben and got no response. I call Ben and leave voicemail and get no call back. I email again and finally get a response. It was another "bug" in the software and I will get paid on the next billing cycle (a month away) because the sales I was to be paid on had not reached the 30 day requirement (in other words, if the user cancels, my commission is voided). OK, that's fine and I understand that.

Well the next payment cycle has come and gone nearly 2 weeks ago. Ben is no where to be found. I call their number and it's changed to a new one. I call that one and I get no option for his extension. I can only get a tech support rep who promises that he as no way of transferring a phone call. Oh and he is unable to get me on the phone with Ben Hong, or anyone else for that matter. There is no other number I can use to reach Ben or anyone in their affiliate department. It's only him, the mighty tech support rep, and guess what, he is not able to help me with affiliate issues. Of course not.

What are my options?

At this point I am calling it a loss. I'd rather forget all about them and try to get the word out.

I should head down to their office (also in So. Cal. where I am located) and ask to see Ben in person. Thing is, I would rather let the affiliate world know how they run their business and hit them where it hurts, their bottom line.

Funny thing is, I am not the only one with a negative experience. A friend of mine jumped right in with them (after I told him about the $200 offer) and began sending them a lot of sales. See, he has a string of new clients who require a website to continue working with him. He was sending them 4-6 new sales a day. Now these are confirmed sales because these users are his clients and he is on the phone with them while using their WebHostingPad.com accounts.

Guess what? His sales started disappearing. Ben claimed they had cancelled their account, but of course they hadn't. Obviously they are my friends clients and he can easily confirm their accounts were active and the user had not requested cancellation. At least he was able to collect payment on most of his sales. Now he has no way of reaching Ben either. Shady shady!

Feel free to link to, republish, whatever this posting on your blog, forums, etc. Be good to help out our fellow marketers and let everyone know not to deal with these clowns.

Update: - This morning (3/13/08) I received a call from Ben Hong saying he apologizes for all the "mixups" and I have been sent a payment via Paypal. Word travels fast in the blogosphere and less than 24 hours later I was paid in full. Funny thing is, it wasn't a lot of money that was owed to me (less than a thousand) so it wasn't the end of the world and that's why I decided to call it a loss and write the post to begin with.

So for anyone out there having trouble, write a blog post about your issues. The social web has given us a powerful tool to "fight back", so why not use it?

Technorati Tags: affiliate, affiliate marketing, ben hong, commission, shady, webhostingpad